PHOTO QUALITY. This 20-megapixel waterproof and rugged camera captured images with merely fair quality. We judged this model good for outdoor performance, such as shooting landscapes in the daytime; fair for indoor performance, such as photographing a well-lit basketball game in a gym.
FLASH. The Lumix DC-TS7 captured flash shots that were good. In our distance test, we found the camera's flash could illuminate most subjects that are closer to the camera, but had some problems with distant subjects. The flash also has good, relatively even coverage.
LENS. This camera includes a 4.6x zoom lens, a bit more zoom than a standard 3x. The lens also has wide-angle (28mm) capability that's useful for landscapes and group portraits, although you may notice a bit of distortion when you're shooting faces up close, for instance.
IMAGE STABILIZATION. This is an important feature; taking hand-held shots at the telephoto end of the zoom range can generally blur or soften images due to the slight movement of your hands. Shooting telephoto in well-lit scenes, this model did a very good job of minimizing the effects of camera shake. In low-light settings, it performed excellently and almost never produced blurry photos. Overall, the shake reduction results from our tests were excellent.
SPEED. In terms of performance, the Panasonic Lumix DC-TS7 powers up in a moderate amount of time. It has a short interval between shots, which can be important when shooting fast-moving or unpredictable subjects.
VIDEO. The Panasonic Lumix DC-TS7 takes fair video. It also captures 4K-UHD video at 3840 x 2160 60p or 30i. As for sound, it captures fair audio in stereo.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS. Although it has a display with 1,040,000 pixels, which should make it sharper than most in its class, we didn't find that the display stood out from the pack. This waterproof and rugged is much heavier than most in its class.
